According to the BBC, the NYT, CNN, and many other sources, German officials announced on Monday that they had foiled a terrorist plot
to blow up a passenger plane.
The story was widely reported, even though
nobody was charged in connection with their investigation; in fact five of
the six so-called "suspects" were quickly released, and the other is
being held on an unrelated matter. Hmmm.

German police
questioned six suspects on Friday over the alleged plot, but five were
released on Saturday, the federal prosecutor's office said.
...

One of those arrested on Friday remains in custody in connection with
another investigation, the officials said.
Nine apartments were searched on Friday in Rhineland-Palatinate state
and Hessen, they added.

You'd
have to think if they had evidence implicating any of the
"suspects", they would have kept them around... Wouldn't you?

"During
the summer, several suspects made contact with an individual who had
access to the security-restricted zone of an airport," a statement
said.
The individual agreed to help smuggle explosives concealed in a case or
a bag onto a plane in return for payment, it added.
But the plot broke down when the as yet unidentified suspects failed to
reach agreement with the airport employee on the amount he would be
paid to plant the luggage.

A
security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to comment on the matter, said the plot was centered on
the Frankfurt airport and the plan apparently was to attack a plane
belonging to Israel's El Al.

A German expert on terrorism, Rolf Tophoven, said the report of the
alleged Frankfurt plot was alarming because it suggested that
terrorists were seeking ways around the tight security checks that are
now common at major airports.

“This is a new tactical
development, because they tried to infiltrate the security
infrastructure by hiring a person who had access to the airfield and
aircraft,” Mr. Tophoven said. “You can protect an airfield with
electronic fences and X-rays, but you can’t protect against human
weakness.”

In
a similar investigation, police in the northern city of Hamburg in 2002
arrested seven suspected Islamic extremists who were believed to be
plotting new terrorist attacks, only to release them several hours
later.
Authorities there later said that through five months of surveillance
they had not managed to come up with enough evidence to charge the men,
but that they were convinced they were getting ready to act and wanted
to thwart their plot.

Mainz, Germany (dpa) - One of six Arab men arrested
in Germany last week and accused of plotting to blow up a plane
asserted in a television interview Thursday that the scheme had been a
"joke."

A newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, added that
prosecutors had "inflated" the incident into a plot although
investigators had wanted to close the file. It said searches of homes
and the arrests of the men had been carried out after four months of
fruitless inquiry.

Officials in Germany say the group offered
a person with a Frankfurt international airport security clearance a
bribe to smuggle a bomb in a suitcase onto a plane. News reports said
the group were Palestinians and had targeted the Israeli airline El Al.
...
According to newspapers, the airport employee
reported the approach to police. German authorities say they are
hunting the "sponsors" of the attack.

The Sueddeutsche, quoting
"security services," said the evidence had never been grave and the
supposed "sponsors" did not exist.

It
said federal police and prosecutors had decided October 23 after months
of vain inquiries to search the suspects' homes, mainly so they could
say they had left no stone unturned.

The paper said
investigators had been worried they would lose judicial permission to
continue tapping the men's telephones because the evidence was so
slight.